Wellness and Recovery in Housing Support – Part 4 of 4

 Iain's Blog  No Responses »
May 022013
 

I have a very personal connection to wellness and recovery as it relates to mental illness. If you haven’t read my older blog on living with depression, you can read it here. Or if you want to watch my video blog on mental illness and stereotypes that emerged in the wake of Sandy Hook, you can watch that here. Because I have a personal connection to wellness and recovery, I suppose it should come as no surprise that it is one of my favorite areas to provide training to housing case managers, and to help homeless serving agencies truly understand and embrace. This is a four-part blog that examines wellness and recovery in the process of supporting people in housing, and working to prevent homelessness from happening again to that person/family. In Part Four of this blog series on Wellness and Recovery, I focus on what we would expect people in housing that are experiencing recovery to say they are seeking from their housing support worker, and what is appreciated most from their housing support worker. These are generalizations, realizing that each person that experiences recovery does so differently and may have different priorities in their recovery process. Perhaps it goes without saying, but there is a large expectation that a housing support worker will help the person that is homeless and starting on the journey to recovery to help them find appropriate accommodation. Choice is a really important consideration in this process. Part of empowerment is having a voice [...]

Back to Basics – What Exactly is Housing First & Rapid Re-Housing?

 Iain's Blog  1 Response »
May 152012
 
Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:16 — 8.1MB)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:16 — 8.1MB) A lot of the time I find “Housing First” and “Rapid Re-Housing” to be misused terms. Below I briefly outline the definitions and service components to each. When asked to assist organizations or communities realign their service delivery to be more effective or to evaluate their housing programs, this is the understanding of Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing that I try to generate awareness of in the community. As this is a blog and not a two or three day training seminar, I am focusing on hitting the high points. (Maybe some day I will find a publisher that will take me on to write the more exhaustive description, program examples, etc – but I digress.) As a philosophy housing first (intentionally a lower case “h” and lower case “f”) focuses on any attempt to help people who have experienced homelessness to access housing before providing assistance and support with any other life issues. In this orientation, the intervention of Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing both fit. Given housing is the only known cure to homelessness, the success comes with helping ideal candidates achieve the cure sooner rather than later. As an intervention Housing First is a specific type of service delivery. Delivered through Intensive Case Management or Assertive Community Treatment, fidelity to the core aspects of the service can be measured. Housing First is specifically not a “first come, first served” intervention. It intentionally seeks out chronically homeless [...]

Improving the use of Empathy in Recovery-Oriented Conversations

 Iain's Blog  No Responses »
Feb 022012
 

This week I am unveiling our new Recovery-oriented Housing Support Training. One of the areas I felt it necessary to add more time and attention is related to the importance of expressing and exercising empathetic conversation. Being appreciative of the client’s thoughts, feelings and experience is important to meaningful support, but too often I have seen well-intentioned support workers miss the boat when it comes to creating an environment conducive to an empathetic connection. What are some of the common mistakes? Interrupting is a big one. Sometimes it is to provide advice or try to provide a solution or make suggestions when it is unsolicited. I think some support workers think this is helpful and uses their time better. But if recovery is a process and a journey then we need to take time to let it unravel. This may mean multiple interactions over time. Making demands of people rather than honoring decision-making and empowering people with information that they can discern is another common mistake. Part of recovery is respecting that people will make mistakes and then engaging with them to debrief on what has been learned. I think it is often out of these protective instincts that I have seen workers order, direct, warn, threat, moralize or preach to their clients. The action of making a demand on someone is laden with authority and power that disrespect the equality that is necessary in empathetic conversations. Another big one for me is judgment. We all have our personal values, [...]

Helping Landlords Help You

 Iain's Blog  No Responses »
Nov 162011
 

PART FIVE: Helping Landlords Help You There should be a range of housing options for clients of your housing program to consider. In the best of circumstances this will include everything from permanent supportive housing to private market housing (with or without vouchers or rent supplements) and public/social housing. It will hopefully include a wide variety of units from multi-unit residential buildings to suites in the secondary market like basement suites or rented houses. It may also include the likes of well-maintained and managed rooming houses or boarding homes. And I could go on with the diverse types of housing. The key is to have a range of options that clients can CHOOSE from. Choice is fundamental to housing program success. If your organization does housing placements instead of offering housing choices, you are missing an important part of program success. In one research study it found that clients who felt that they had a choice in where they lived were most happy with their housing, whereas those who felt that had less choice were much less happy with their housing. The latter is also more likely to move and/or experience a return to homelessness. For the purpose of this blog, I want to focus attention on working with private market landlords – even if your organization does not have access to any type of financial assistance to provide to landlords. In a perfect world there would be an infinite number of subsidies to provide; immediate access to subsidized housing; [...]

Metro Vancouver homeless count: from Grate Street to Shelter Avenue – Civic Lee Speaking

 Metro Vancouver homeless count: from Grate Street to Shelter Avenue – Civic Lee Speaking  Media  No Responses »
May 242011
 

By JEFF LEE 24 MAY 2011 CIVIC LEE SPEAKING Metro Vancouver’s latest homeless count is out and it shows me two significant things. The first is that 2,623 people were living in shelters, police cells, doorways and detox centres as of March 16, marginally down from three years ago, when researchers found 2,660 souls. Unquantified in both surveys is the number of “hidden homeless”, those people that researchers say don’t fit into the category of those living either on the street or in shelters. They’re the ones we can’t find or who don’t pop up onto our radar. In other words, we really don’t know how many homeless there are. Here’s my story from today’s announcement. You have to look inside the numbers of the March 16 count to see the real change, with a stunning rise in the number of people living in emergency shelters, and a near equivalent decline in the number living on the street. This sounds good, doesn’t it? But this also tells me is that for all the hundreds of millions of dollars governments have thrown at solving homelessness, it doesn’t seem like we’re really any closer to finding a solution. There are still virtually the same number of people without stable housing as there were in 2008, the last time Metro Vancouver did a survey. The only thing that’s changed has been Joe and Jane’s address, from #21 Heat Grate Street to #21 Emergency Shelter Ave. This despite the fact the province invested millions [...]

Prioritizing Who Gets Served Next Matters – The Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (SPDAT)

 Iain's Blog  2 Responses »
Apr 292011
 
Prioritizing Who Gets Served Next Matters – The Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (SPDAT)

When I led the largest Housing First program in North America, one of the things that bothered me was that we had no defensible way to prioritize who we served next. We dabbled with different instruments and had some stellar research thanks to folks like Toby Druce – but couldn’t quite put our finger on exactly how to prioritize who got served next and why. At least not in a defensible, reliable, consistent and valid way. Sure, there are some awesome instruments out there like the Vulnerability Index used by Common Ground and now the 100k Homes Campaign (and we are big fans of both); the Camberwell Assessment of Needs; the Outcome Star; the Denver Acuity Scale. But none of these were a perfect fit for the type of Housing First program that I was leading or other Housing First programs that I was familiar with. One of the first things I started working on when I made the move to OrgCode was to develop the right tool for determining who should get served by what type of housing intervention and why. Being the nerd that I am, I took an inventory of all existing tools that I could get my hands on – hoping that I had just missed something in my previous work. No point re-inventing the wheel. Truth is, not much with credible overlap other than the ones previously mentioned – and even then, too many limitations or shortcomings. I found a small number of communities and [...]

Building a housing strategy | London | News | London Free Press

 Building a housing strategy | London | News | London Free Press  Media  No Responses »
Mar 282011
 

By JANE SIMS, LONDON FREE PRESS Last Updated: March 28, 2010 1:04pm Home is where the community is. And on Saturday, the community continued to help mould a housing strategy for London at an open house public forums. The coffee was on and conversation was ongoing about everything from homelessness to home ownership. While there wasn’t a huge turn-out, there were lots of good ideas and community brainstorming about what the city should be examining. “It’s an exercise in civic engagement that allows people to truly have a voice heard,” said Iain De Jong, from OrgCode, the consulting firm that is helping guide the city through the ideas that are being tossed around by interested Londoners keen on seeing a complete five-year housing strategy. Those ideas are coming from all sectors — developers, property managers, tenants, and social agencies — and are exchanged like “people sitting around a kitchen table.” Louise Stevens, the city’s director of municipal housing said she hopes to bring the consultation components to the table in time for initial city budget consultations in May and June and for city council to settle priorities by June 28, allowing her time to set priorities for the upcoming budget consultations and before the electioneering reaches its peak. “I want to make sure we are spending it properly,” she said. The consultants will be able to tell the city what it is doing right, but can also offer constructive community ideas about what residents think are the priorities. Shelters, affordable [...]

New housing strategy planned | London | News | London Free Press

 New housing strategy planned | London | News | London Free Press  Media  No Responses »
Mar 192011
 

CITY GROWTH: The five-year plan would cover all aspects, from streets and shelters to home ownership By PATRICK MALONEY, THE LONDON FREE PRESS Last Updated: March 19, 2010 12:13am City officials are developing a five-year plan to tackle all aspects of housing in London — from homelessness to home ownership — and want the public’s input to help set priorities. The creation of a so-called community housing strategy will combine existing city plans on affordable housing and homelessness and set a course on an issue one politician says affects a wide range of aspects of London’s future. Coun. Susan Eagle, a long-time housing activist, says that beyond helping those needing affordable housing and other assistance, the five-year plan can aid councillors in planning city growth properly. “It’s to give us the big picture of the needs of the community,” Eagle said. “Are we planning subdivisions (for example) that allow various kinds of housing? “It’s helpful . . . in the way we integrate neighbourhoods. If you’re going to avoid ghettos, you’re going to have to look at they ways you integrate communities.” Eagle also hopes the public feedback will help the city to create a “continuum” of services for people needing help: If, for example, a person is moved into affordable housing without mental-health support, they may not last there, slipping instead back into shelters. “The community knows where the gaps are. The people who use this system know where the gaps are,” Eagle said. “They know where they fall [...]

Affordable housing shortage identified – The Sarnia Observer – Ontario, CA

 Affordable housing shortage identified – The Sarnia Observer – Ontario, CA  Media  No Responses »
Feb 142011
 

By CATHY DOBSON, THE OBSERVER Sarnia-Lambton will need 235 new affordable housing units over the next 10 years, says a new study to be released this spring. Lambton County staff are still reviewing the consultants’ draft, says Lola Dudley, manager of housing services. The Port Credit firm of OrgCode Consulting was hired for $41,000 to review local housing needs and help set the stage for the next decade, she said. The consultants also looked at homelessness in Lambton County and providing appropriate housing for residents with special needs. “Of the 235 units, most are needed in Sarnia,” Dudley said. “The rest are spread throughout Lambton’s other municipalities.” Affordable housing providers need to prepare for aging baby boomers over the next 10 to 20 years, the study says. “Creating 235 new units is attainable if the federal and provincial governments would commit to financial assistance,” Dudley said. “Otherwise, I don’t know how we’d do it unless we can get the private sector involved.” The consultants urge a more creative approach to affordable housing, even suggesting that widows and widowers open their homes to others. “That’s what we used to call boarders,” Dudley said. “It helps the widow with extra space pay expenses and it provides social support. “The study talks a lot about looking at new ways of using (housing) stock we have already and focusing on those in the lowest 40% income (bracket).” In total, the new study has 30 recommendations that will go to county council for consideration, probably [...]

The Lambton Shield | County plans affordable housing consultations ; Sarnia & Lambton County Local News

 The Lambton Shield | County plans affordable housing consultations ; Sarnia & Lambton County Local News  Media  No Responses »
Nov 192010
 

UNCATEGORIZED — BY JD ON NOVEMBER 19, 2010 AT 4:20 PM A series of public consultations will be taking place across Lambton County over the next eight weeks to gather input about affordable housing, special needs alternatives and homelessness. In a news release from the county of Lambton, Lola Dudley, manager of the county’s Housing Services department, said organizers expect to see a good cross section of participants at the open sessions, including community leaders, church members, homeowners, renters, landlords, community groups and caregivers. “Participants will be guided through a structured, informative and entertaining experience,” said Dudley. “Everyone is ensured to have an equal opportunity to participate and contribute to the outcomes.” The public input will be collated and examined by OrgCode Inc., a company contracted by the Housing Services Department to complete an affordable housing strategy for Lambton County. “Our goal is to ensure everyone living in Lambton County has access to a safe and affordable place to live,” said Dudley. “It’s important that we hear from people living and working in the area who can provide us with their perspectives, experiences and concerns at these sessions.” The resulting Housing Analysis Report will provide a framework for programs and housing development designed to meet the needs of each community and create an Affordable Housing Strategy for Lambton County. via The Lambton Shield | County plans affordable housing consultations ; Sarnia & Lambton County Local News.

Public meetings offered on housing – The Sarnia Observer – Ontario, CA

 Public meetings offered on housing – The Sarnia Observer – Ontario, CA  Media  No Responses »
Nov 142010
 

A series of public consultations will be taking place across Lambton County over the next eight weeks to gather input about affordable housing, special needs alternatives and homelessness. The county sessions are open to the public and will include community leaders, church members, homeowners, renters, landlords, community groups and front line caregivers. The public input will be collated and examined by OrgCode Inc., a company contracted by the Housing Services Department to complete an affordable housing strategy for Lambton County. “Our goal is to ensure everyone living in Lambton County has access to a safe and affordable place to live,” said Lola Dudley, Lambton Housing Services Department manager. The resulting Housing Analysis Report will provide a framework for programs and housing development designed to meet the needs of each community and create an Affordable Housing Strategy for Lambton County. Sessions will be offered across Lambton, including: Nov. 22 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Wyoming municipal office; Nov. 23 from 9 a.m. to noon at Sarnia’s city hall, in room four; Nov. 23 from 3 to 5 p.mat Point Edward council chambers; Nov. 24 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Warwick medical centre; Nov. 25 from 9 a.m. to noon at Petrolia’s Oil Heritage District Community Centre; Nov. 25 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the St. Clair municipal building in Mooretown; Dec. 14 from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Thedford Village Complex; Dec. 16 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Dawn-Euphemia Community Centre; and Jan. [...]